PROFILE
“My passion has been elec- tions. I like technology. I want to make them easier and more acces- sible for people to vote.”
— Crystal Graddy, Boone County Clerk
Top: Crystal Graddy with a photo ID camera and printer.
Right: Crystal Graddy works with Merrissa Bridges in the Boone County Clerk’s office.
Improving voter technology a priority for Boone clerk
ByRob Mo ritz For County Lines
clerk’s office, Graddy has embraced everything from an electronic voting machine pilot program to an initiative that allows Boone County voters to cast a ballot at any precinct they wish. State legislators took notice of the latter initiative, adopting a similar statewide measure during last year’s legislative session. “My passion has been elections. I like technology. I want to use it to make it easier and more accessible for people to vote,” Graddy said. Boone County, which borders Missouri in north Arkansas, has a population of nearly 37,000, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Graddy’s family moved there from Oklahoma when she was 7 years old. A graduate of Valley Springs High School, just southeast of Harrison, Graddy went to work in the clerk’s office in 1997, when David Witty was clerk. “I’ve held every position in the office,” Graddy said. Her first job was working probate. She was elected county clerk
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everaging the latest technologies to improve services to residents may well be Boone County Clerk Crystal Graddy’s specialty. Indeed, in the 17 years that she has served in the
in 2006. Six years later she asked the Boone County Quorum Court to change the county’s election law so residents could vote at any of the county’s precincts. Graddy said voters had complained to her both before and after the 2010 redistricting about the distance they had to travel to their polling places. Even before redistricting one resident had to vote 15 miles away
from his home, even though there was a polling place just 5 miles away. Another voter — a woman who relied on her daughter to drive her to the precinct where they both voted — found that after redistricting she no longer shared a polling place with her daughter. In fact, her new polling place was several miles away. “I thought, ‘How do I make everybody happy?” Graddy said. Since all precincts in the county had electronic books, Graddy began asking, “Why can’t they vote wherever they want to?” Quorum court members agreed that voting should be more con-
venient, and they unanimously passed an ordinance allowing voters to cast a ballot at any precinct in the county. Boone County Justice of the Peace James Widner, who sponsored
Graddy’s proposal before the quorum court, said he saw first hand during the 2012 election that the initiative had made voting easier for people.
COUNTY LINES, SPRING 2014
COUNTY OFFICIAL
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